BUT IS IT ART?

Original broadcast date: SEPTEMBER 12, 1993, 7:00 PMA vacuum cleaner. A urinal. Three basketballs floating in water? Morley Safer takes a critical look at the contemporary art world, where household items like these are sold as high-priced art. In this much talked about piece, Safer takes on the artists, dealers and critics of the 90s with gusto.

The producer of 60 Minutes is Andy Rooney. Some years ago, in his weekly opinion piece, Andy Rooney shared his views on public art.When Did This Become Art?About the 'artspeak' that describes some of these works he said: "I may not understand art, but I do understand the English language, and that is pretentious nonsense. "

The late art critic Hilton Kramer, interviewed in the CBS video "But is it Art?" had published several very interesting books on this subject, such as this one (1985) - check it out on Google books, available at Amazon: